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local Monday 27 February 2023

Edward Cheung takes the University of Aruba to space in recent lecture

On Thursday, the 23rd both. to leave some of their be-
of February, Dr. Edward Since childhood, Edward longings on the moon. This
Cheung gave a lecture ti- expressed a passion for inspired the doctor, be-
tled “An evening in Space: engineering; he shared cause he thought what a
The Story of an Aruban En- with the public a child- great privilege it would be
gineer at NASA” at the Uni- hood memory in which he to be one of the few on the
versity of Aruba. In this lec- remembered being fasci- planet to have something
ture, Dr. Cheung shared his nated by the mechanisms on the moon. He decided
life story and experience at of his radio and the pos- he wanted to bring some of
NASA, as well as answered sibilities this piece of tech- the white sand of Aruba’s
some burning questions nology had. For him, it was beaches to the moon, as
about space technology “magic”. From that day this is something that the
and his hopes for the future onward, he developed Aruban community shares
of the space institution. a passion for engineering collectively. He also men-
and tinkering. Currently, Dr. tioned that it was impor-
The evening started with Cheung is based at God- tant for him to be able to
a small introduction from dard Space Flight Center vocalize his reason for this,
University director Prof. dr. in Maryland. He has been for which he said: “To show
Viola Heutger, in which she working for NASA for 32 that the reach of someone
expressed her gratitude for years, in which he led and on this island goes beyond
Dr. Cheung’s presence. participated in various proj- this world.”
Additionally, she expressed ects, including the famous Coincidentally, Dr. Cheung
her pride in being able to Hubble Telescope. is a part of a new NASA
host someone that has di- During his lecture, Dr. program in which they will
rect knowledge and ex- Cheung of course men- be making a commercial
perience with one of the tioned his viral video of flight back to the moon.
world’s most famous orga- him floating in zero gravity, The doctor was one of the
nization for space explora- during which he opened few experts assigned to
tion. Prof. dr. Heutger end- the Aruban flag. This was advise some groups of or-
ed her introduction with a a huge moment for the is- ganizations and institutions
thanks to the audience as land, as this is the first time before their trip. Because of
she passed the mic to Dr. that our home country this, he thought what bet-
Cheung. was being represented in ter time to take the sand to
Dr. Cheung’s higher aca- such an extraordinary cir- the moon. Dr. Cheung ex-
demic career started in cumstance. Dr. Cheung pressed that the project is
Aruba, where he attended expressed that he did not due this March.
Colegio Arubano second- think that the video would During his lecture, Dr.
ary school at both San become a hit, but he was Cheung also answered
Nicolas and Oranjestad. evidently proven wrong. some questions cover-
After receiving his high He also shared his plan to ing different topics about
school diploma, he contin- bring white sand from Aru- NASA’s methods, technol-
ued his studies at Worces- ba to the moon. This idea ogy and even aspirations.
ter Polytechnic Institute in came about after watch- He shared with the audi-
Worcester, Massachusetts ing several documenta- ence his experience with
and Yale University in Con- ries on the moon landing the Hubble Telescope. For
necticut, which he studied in 1969. He realized that this project, the doctor ex-
electrical engineering at the astronauts were able pressed that he wanted

to further promote Aruba from which NASA recently
at NASA. To do this, he shared extraordinary pic-
named the relay machine tures of the far galaxy. He
that his team was building also covered topics such as
“ARUBA”. However, in or- sustainability within NASA
der to get the name for his projects, as well as his and
“ARUBA box” approved by NASA’s future goals for
his superiors, he needed to space exploration.
make it an abbreviation for Dr. Cheung ended his lec-
a much longer name, so he ture with an advice for the
concluded that “ARUBA” youths of Aruba, in which
stands for “ASCS/NCS Re- he pointed out that he
lay Unit Breaker Assembly.” came to be where he is
This way, he managed to now because of his hard
get the name approved. work and curiosity. So, he
advises the youth to do
The lecture was a highly the same, to keep doing
interactive one, where self-study and keep be-
the audience enthusias- ing a “tinkerer.” Finally, he
tically asked the doctor also expressed that NASA’s
many questions about a future is “bright”, and he
range of topics, including hopes for bigger tele-
on the mechanisms of the scopes for further explora-
James Webb Telescope, tion of our universe.q